Ghost Hunting with the Cullens
by EraBlaise
Summary: Alice and Bella get obsessed with ghost-hunting reality TV and they manage to accidentally take Rosalie and Esme on their first investigation. Alice and Bella just wanted to explore their obsession without the others laughing at them; Esme wanted to bond with her daughters, and Rosalie just really wants to murder, or at least maim the self appointent members of the Scooby Gang.


_I own nothing. The characters are a bit OOC, for humour. Reviews are always welcome, and I hope no one takes my little bit of getting in the Halloween mood too seriously._

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The scent of pine and the coming snow was so strong in the air that even Bella's human nose could pick it up as the four of them stood in front of the building. A crow crooned in the distance and Rosalie's scowl deepened as her gaze swept over the landscape before she looked at Alice. The short brunette was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, pouting. Bella was digging the dirt with her scuffed trainers, hands in her pockets, her face the epitome of someone who clearly did not wish to be noticed. Rosalie's face clearly said that she did not want to be there. Esme was equally bemused and confused.

"Listen," Alice's voice was harsh, a clear sign of her frustration. "We told you you would not want to come." Bella flinched at the sentence, fully aware that she was included in the "we".

"Alice…" Rosalie did not say more, but the threat in her voice was evident. It said, "you better explain everything, quickly". Bella let out a huff as she crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking Alice.

"We came here to ghost hunt," she cut in before a full-blown fight could have broken out between the sisters. With a bravado that surprised even Bella, she stared into Rosalie's angry eyes, daring her to say something. The fuming blonde probably would have, but she swallowed the angry retort when she heard Esme shift beside her. She promised Esme that she would come that weekend, for some "girl bonding". She closed her eyes in frustration, grinding her teeth together with such a force that Bella grimaced with Esme.

This was going to be a long weekend.

Apparently, Bella and Alice's newfound obsession with ghost-hunting reality shows - really, Rosalie rolled her eyes at their stupidity -, exceeded the point of just wanting to watch them. They wanted to try it. So they made a plan; the weekend the boys were supposed to go hunting, they would go hunting, too. They found a "haunted" mansion about two hours drive from Forks and rented it for the weekend. Their cover story was that of going shopping and to museums. They even made a phony schedule for their weekend, which gave Esme the bright idea that they should join them. Rosalie was nowhere near enthusiastic about the bonding weekend, as Esme called it, but what surprised the matriarch was the visible reluctance of Alice and Bella.

But now, as Alice opened the trunk of Edward's Volvo, Esme understood their secrecy. The boys made fun of the girl's obsession so it made sense they would want to keep the whole affair as hush hush as they could… but she still wondered where the girls hid the two bags of paranormal investigating equipment that Alice lifted out of the car while Bella got their suitcases from the back seat. She shook her head lightly, deciding that maybe it was better if she did not know, and lifted out a cooler and a sleeping bag that smelled faintly of smoke and fish. From its used state she suspected it belonged to Bella's dad.

Esme followed Bella up the stairs to the house, her brown hiking boots making hollow sounds on the old wooden structure. She had worries about the whole trip, from the structure of the building to the fact that Bella would need a sleeping bag to sleep in, but as they stepped into the dusty foyer and she watched the young girl's eyes lit up with excitement, she decided to disregard logic. She found immense pleasure and delight in anything that could make her human daughter happy, no matter how strange that was. Just as she made the decision to stick to the girls' plans for the weekend, Alice let out an excited squeal from the room on their left and she followed Bella there with a chuckle of her own.

Rosalie meanwhile resigned herself to carrying out the stupidest idea that Alice has ever had. She stood in what looked like a parlor with her hands on her hips, eyeing the moth-eaten carpet under her feet with disdain. The whole place looked unused, even though it was fully furnished. She could see the layer of dust on every surface, from the old armchairs to the coffee table. It danced around in the air, clearly visible even to the human eye in the faint sunlight that managed to fight its way in through the dirty windows, half of which was boarded up. There was a faint scent of a human in the air, a few days old and already disappearing beneath the layers of other smells - dust and decay and something she could have only described as death.

"So, where did you find this place?" she asked, once she heard the others enter behind her, watching Alice as she twirled around the room, looking at every little piece of dirt as if she was in the Ritz. "On _haunted mansions dot com_?" She put as much disdain and mockery in her voice as she could and Alice turned around with a hurt look on her face, but it was not she who answered.

"Charlie." Rosalie looked at Bella in surprise, the brunette passing her slowly as she kept her gaze on their surroundings. She quickly schooled her features into a scowl when the girl turned around, but Alice had already seen it and sported a grin.

"They broke into here for a party when he was young," Bella continued, avoiding the blonde vampire's gaze as she swept her finger over the coffee table, collecting dust. "He said," here she deepened her voice in a surprisingly accurate imitation of her father, "I was drunk Bells. But not that drunk. There was something spooky goin' on there." This time, when Bella glanced at her, Rosalie did not try to hide her surprise. Who would have thought that good old law-abiding Chief Swan had a reckless youth?

"They left everything here…" Esme's voice held a tone of disbelief and awe and they all glanced at her as she slowly made her way around the room. Esme's interior designer eyes could see beneath the layers of grime the way her daughters could not.

There was a thick layer of dust on the floorboards, Alice's tiny feet leaving their mark as she previously danced around the room, big heavy boots going to the fireplace and the marks of someone kneeling there, the wood inside clean and ready to be lit, and with a bit of imagination Esme could imagine the firelight dancing on the polished wood, not only on the floor but on the wooden paneling that ran around the room about waist height, too. The wallpaper once would have been a deep red, and her vampire eyes could see the silver flowers that would have adorned it. The same silver that ran around the edge of the fireplace, complemented by the brown leather armchair positioned in front of it and the matching sofas. The carpet that softened the floor in the sitting area was harder to make out but she was almost sure it would have been shades of burgundy, probably very similar to the curtains. She said they left everything here, but that was not really true - the giant bookcase on the far wall was empty, its contents missing, and yet a side table still held one, lonely whiskey glass as if the gentleman of the house just retired after a nightcap. It was evident that decades ago someone took the care to furnish this house with great taste, and yet it was fully abandoned for many years.

Esme's eyes finally landed on Alice, and she narrowed her usually kind eyes at her.

"Please tell me we are here legally." There was a faint note of pleading in her voice, knowing her children's relaxed attitude when it came to breaking laws.

"Kind of…" Alice said and Esme caught the small grimace on Bella's face. Her sigh was almost drowned out by the sound of Rosalie's very unladylike snort. She was just about to open her mouth to berate her future seeing troublemaker, when Alice cut her off, her words fast to make sure she could actually get them out before Esme went off.

"We paid for it and got a key, I swear!" Bella nodded eagerly along with Alice's words, having made her way over to the pixie.

"Then why kind of?" this was from Rosalie, who now stood with her arms crossed over her chest, for the first time amusement lightly dancing in her eyes. The prospect of Esme chewing the Scooby-Doo wanna-be's was too good to give up.

Bella grimaced, clearly wishing they would have left it at that. Alice just sighed, recognizing defeat before explaining.

"We talked to an old guy, who is the caretaker," at this Rosalie glanced around, wondering what exactly he was taking care of. "He left the keys for us and even turned on the water and got us a gas stove!" Bella has taken up nodding enthusiastically again, and she reminded Rosalie of the little nodding dog Emmet put in her car once. Esme, however, seemed to have been satisfied with the answer, now that it was clear to her that Bella would not go without food and basic comforts during their stay. So far, it did not sound worse than camping.

"He is making some extra cash from this," Bella added with a shrug.

"Hence kind of," Alice added.

Rosalie let out another sigh, the unneeded air leaving her mouth loudly for the hundredth time in the last 30 minutes. The small hope of leaving this stupidity that she harbored when Esme started to question the girls disappeared when the woman clapped her hands and with a cheerful voice asked what their plan for the weekend was. Her angry eyes that darkened suddenly found Bella's and the girl swallowed hard. If the ghosts did not get them this weekend, Rosalie was certainly going to.

"The parlor is our base," Alice explained as she rolled a giant paper out on the low coffee table. The light of the growing fire that Esme insisted on lighting amidst the protests of Alice and Bella (Rosalie had started to call them Velma and Scooby in her mind) making it visible, but Bella held up a flashlight above the table. Rose did not think it was that dark inside but they seemed to get a kick out of it, which just made her scowl more pronounced.

They were all kneeling on the dirty floor around the table, the blonde standing behind them in silent protest, but she could not help looking at the paper. Despite her annoyance, she was still curious. She knew most of those shows were a giant hoax but still… she bit her lip as her eyes tried to make sense of what seemed to be the blueprint of the house.

Esme, on the other hand, had seen enough blueprints in her career to immediately make sense of the black and white map. The giant paper was actually a series of simple white pages, all taped together and photocopied. The word 'base' was carefully written in red marker on the room they were in, Alice's slender finger pointing at it and Bella's flashlight shining on her manicured nail.

Esme tried. She bit her lip and took a deep breath of the dusty air but still, the question broke free from her.

"Where did you get the blueprint of the house?" She knew well that it was not easy to get such a document, especially of a house that was built a good century earlier, if not sooner. Her fear seemed to come true, as Alice looked up, holding her gaze for a moment before replying.

"Don't ask, and we won't lie."

The reaction was mixed. Esme closed her eyes in frustration, Rosalie's eyebrow raised a bit in surprise, and Bella hissed Alice's name.

"We did not steal it!" She hastened to calm Esme's fears, throwing a dark glance at the smug-looking Alice.

"Charlie did." Rosalie and Esme both let out a small sound of utter disbelief, the blonde even stepping closer to make sure that despite her enchanted hearing, she did not mishear it.

"He did not steal it!" Bella protested, her face reddening at the accusation. Alice raised an eyebrow, her voice deadpan.

"He told us not to ask questions, make a copy and get it back to him in two hours."

"He just… borrowed it…" Bella made a last effort to protect his father, but her argument sounded weak even to her own ears.

"Anyway," Alice continued, turning her attention back to the print. "As you can see, the house is quite big, so we will split it into two. Tonight we do the living areas. There is a kitchen, a dining room and a bathroom on this floor." Her fingers mapped out the spaces she spoke of, even Rosalie's eyes following her movements. They have made marks on the prints, so her explanation was easy to follow, yet Esme frowned in thought.

"When was this house built?" She asked, instantly glancing at the corner of the print where such information would have been, but the ink was smudged in that area - someone must have spilled something on the original document.

"1868," Alice supplied the information and Esme nodded.

"Then it is possible this print is not accurate now," she said gently, not wishing to ruin their fun. She suspected they must have planned this adventure quite thoroughly and for a long time and hated to see them disappointed, although she suspected the lack of supernatural happenings would still be a blow to them.

The Scooby gang looked at her in confusion and Rosalie kneeled down next to the table, fully giving herself to fate now, but letting out a huff when they all looked at her with varying degrees of glee.

"This would not have been a bathroom," she tapped the room they marked as such with an elegant fingernail, briefly glancing at Esme to see her nod.

"But the caretaker said it was." Esme nodded at their protest, acknowledging it.

"And it might be now, but it is too big. It's most likely it was a lady's parlor or an office of sorts." Alice visibly deflated and Bella lost some of the excitement shining in her eyes. All their careful planning using the blueprints just went out the window.

"Hey, it is still helpful!" Esme told them with a smile and Rosalie was not quite sure if she felt bad about that or not. On one hand, it gave some confidence to Velma and Scooby, on the other it just made them get their mojo back. She pinched the bridge of her nose and wondered if vampires could get headaches.


End file.
